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Theatre Review: Anything Goes ✭✭✭

Anything Goes sailed into the King's Theatre this week on the good ship
SS American.

Written in the 1930s, when luxury long distance cruising was the height of
sophistication, the show tells the tale of Billy Crocker who stows away on the
liner in pursuit of his one true love, Hope Harcourt. Hapless Billy ignores his
boss's instructions to return to Wall Street to sell his shares and what
follows is a madcap adventure as he tries to remain undiscovered as a stowaway
before being mistaken for a dangerous mobster.

With an impressive, albeit strangely vertical, ship set the Anything Goes hails
from the bygone days of musicals where lengthy dance numbers are order of the
day with Cole Porter's music filling the air. A new book by Timothy Crouse and
John Weidman goes some way to bring together a fairly lacklustre plotline but
at several points it certainly foundered.

Spirited performances from the cast led by Debbie
Kurup and Matt Rawle bring the
piece to life. As nightclub star Reno Sweeney, Kurup brings charisma and chic
style. Rawle's lovesick Billy Crocker is no doubt the envy of every man on the
theatre given the women fighting over him. Rawle's impressive voice and
puppyish characterisation create a lovable rogue that it's difficult not to
root for. Shaun Williamson's unlucky mobster Moonface Martin provides comic relief with his desperate attempts at recognition. The surprising scene stealer is Stephen
Matthews' Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. His brilliant performance transforms a
potentially mediocre character into a comedic highlight, especially in Act 2's The Gypsy in Me.

For audiences of a certain age Anything Goes is a gentle cruise to the roots of
musical theatre and it's "delightful...it's de-lovely".